2021 Gold Cup recap: USA 6- 1 Martinique - the Americans crush a Concacaf minnow

Following a performance where the USMNT struggled to decisively and convincingly beat Haiti, the team easily got past an outmatched Martinique side. The Americans were more talented on every area of the pitch and it showed. A pair of goals in the first half gave way to a four goal explosion in the second as the Caribbean side got worn down and overpowered by the USA. A late penalty scored by Martinique could be costly as it swung the goals forced tie breaker in the group away from the Americans.

The Americans lined up in a 3-4-3 as Gregg Berhalter gave the people what they wanted and started Eryk WIlliamson, Daryl Dike, and Matthew Hoppe.

Martinique responded with their lineup as the majority of their players report to duty from the Martinique domestic league or lower divisions of France, Spain, and Italy.

Gifs of goals because there were 7 goals

It’s the Gold Cup and the gap in talent between the top teams and lower teams is very evident, this was one of those cases.

The team got off to a fast start thanks to a score from Daryl Dike in the 14th minute.

His goal came as the USA dominated possession and largely dictated the flow of the game. That would be the story of the first half with the ball being controlled by the USA and Martinique failing to do much with it.

It seemed like Dike would have his second goal of the night after the Stars and Stripes tapped the ball around inside of the Martinique box, but it was ruled that this was an own goal, so his time would have to wait.

The USA continued pushing for goals as the half went on, but the sides would go into the locker rooms at 2-0. That score wouldn’t last for long as Miles Robinson put the Stars and Stripes up 3-0.

More scoring would come though as Daryl Dike did something that should probably be made illegal in several states and territories of the United States and chipped the Martinique keeper to make it 4-0.

If there’s a soccer version of the phrase, bless your heart Dike just said it.

Interestingly, Martinique still had some fight left in the tank as they searched for a consolation goal. It would come after Kellyn Acosta committed a foul inside the box and a penalty was awarded. Emmanuel Riviere stepped up and just took a bottle of sauce out and tapped his shot from the spot past Matt Turner. If your team is down by four goals and you take a PK like that, it had better go in.

By this point Dike had made way for Gyasi Zardes. The substitute would make his presence known by putting the USMNT up 5-1 with a very smooth first touch and a well placed shot taken on the run.

The Americans kept pushing for a sixth goal and had quite a few chances until... it came in the 90th minute. After Martinique failed to clear a corner, Gianluca Busio recovered a ball, sprinted to the byline and then hit a cutback to Nico Gioacchini making it 6-1.

At this point, the USA was still looking for a score in order to take the goal differential tiebreaker from Canada since apparently, there’s some doubt that the team could beat Canada outright in the group. Alas, that wouldn’t happen as the game came to an end 6-1.